The top U.S. general in Iraq said Tuesday security in Iraq is “significantly better” since his last appearance before Congress seven months ago, but noted that progress was “fragile” and “reversible.”
Gen. David Petraeus appeared before the U.S. Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees yesterday and recommended that troop withdrawals from Iraq be postponed for 45 days after July when its forces will be reduced to 140,000 or pre-surge levels, according to CNN.
He refused to say if further troop pullout would resume after the pause, but repeated his long-held stance that further withdrawal would be based on conditions on the ground.
"This approach does not allow establishment of a set withdrawal timetable," he said. "However it does provide the flexibility those of us on the ground need to preserve the still-fragile security gains our troopers have fought so far and sacrifice so much to achieve.”
"War is not a linear phenomenon,” Petraeus noted. “It's a calculus, not arithmetic."
But frustrated senators and congressmen alike have challenged the general to explain why U.S. troops should stay in Iraq and continue the unpopular war which recently turned five years old.
"We and the American people must ask: Why should we stay in Iraq in large numbers?" Rep. Ike Skelton, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, asked Wednesday during day two of the Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Croker testimony on Capitol Hill.
"I hope you can also explain the next strategy," Skelton said. "The counterinsurgency strategy worked tactically, but the surge forces are going home. Political reconciliation hasn't happened, and violence has leveled off and may be creeping back."
Although U.S. officials may debate about levels of troops and military strategies, one issue that is difficult to deny is the increased violence against Iraq’s Christian minority.
Just last week a Syrian Orthodox priest, Father Yusef Adel, was murdered in Baghdad. Adel’s death occurred less than three weeks after Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Faraj Raho – Iraq’s second most senior Catholic cleric – was found dead after being kidnapped for two weeks.
Moreover, violent campaigns against church buildings have increased with an astounding number of 10 Iraqi churches bombed within a span of two weeks earlier this year.
Unyielding assaults against Christians have forced the country’s tiny Christian population to flee their homeland in droves. Christians, although making up only three percent of the population, is said to compose nearly half the refugees fleeing Iraq, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
There are now only about 600,000 Iraqi Christians remaining in the country, down from 1.2 million before the war.
Religious freedom and human rights groups have blamed the United States and other countries with troops in Iraq for not doing enough to protect the Christian minority population, which they warn will be extinct if something is not done soon.
But in regards to the general violence in Iraq, Gen. Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker laid blame on Iran, which they accused of fueling ongoing conflict by “funding, training, arming and directing” Shiite Muslim militias in clashes against Iraqi government troops. Continue >>
Comments
gmac 0961,
You make some valid points. You are correct in saying that military victory does not mean political victory. The real problem with Iraq is the fact that we don't control the outcome. The outcome is up to the new Iraqi government. This is true, however this would not be an option were Sadaam still in power.
Just to be clear, I am a retired vet with a son doing his second tour in the MIddle East. I was against the Iraq invasion from the start because of the very quicksand we now find ourselves mired in. I'm no military genius, but there were many voices, Colin Powell among them, who warned us not to do this and I agreed then and now.
The real problem with Iraq is the fact that we don't control the outcome. In this article, Rep Skelton touches on the key point. Military success does not equal political success. In war, you normally have an objective that is within your control, such as the conquest of a given territory. This is different. No matter what we do militarily, we cannot control what the Iraqis do with their own government, unless we were to try and establish a puppet regime, which would be the worst disaster.
This is why I am very aggravated by McCain's calls for "Victory" and "Let them win!". It sounds great from a military standpoint, but this isn't an entirely military situation and doesn't really point the way to our ending our involvement in Iraq.
Simply put: At this point in time, we don't know what real victory looks like.
iraqman says: Dear America,
Thank you for the "liberation" & destruction of Iraq. Now please leave.
If we did this then you would blame Americans for leaving the country un-reconstructed.
The General states that security in Iraq is significantly better. Well, that depends on who you ask. The average Iraqi doesn't feel this so-called better security. America has made many, many enemies in the people of Iraq. Iraqi's blame America for the death & destruction of their country.
Dear America,
Thank you for the "liberation" & destruction of Iraq. Now please leave.